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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Has Landed On Mars And People Are Having A ‘Blast’ Joking About The Monumental Occasion

by: Uproxx authors

In a monumental achievement for NASA, the Perseverance Rover has successfully landed on Mars and beamed back its first images of the red planet within minutes of touching ground. The inspiring accomplishment is being well received on social media where people are enjoying a rare bit of good news in these pandemic times that have been checkered with devastating winter storms and a violent insurrection just last month. Shortly after the NASA rover landed and started its mission, the jokes started flying on Twitter, and there was definitely a theme to the first batch of memes thanks to a certain Texas senator’s ill-timed trip to Cancun.

But it wasn’t all Ted Cruz jokes. Folks didn’t need to dunk on the embattled Cruz as they posted their reactions to the rover landing and reveled in the celebratory mood with GIFs and a quality Robert Pattinson gag.

https://twitter.com/fuggirls/status/1362507073150361601

https://twitter.com/abrahamjoseph/status/1362507680833749001

According to NASA, the Perseverance Rover will be busy now that it’s on Mars. The rover will scour the nearby Jezero Crater for “microfossils,” routinely fire back images to NASA, deploy a helicopter tiny four pound helicopter named “Ingenuity,” record sound for the first time on Mars, and of course, search for signs of life. As for what these scientific findings mean for mankind, retired astronaut Ron Garan explains how space exploration benefits Earth. Via CNN:

“It directly benefits our ability to survive all the crises that might come at us, whether that’s super volcanic eruptions, global warming. Whatever the case is, a better understanding of how planetary science works, how planets function, and the life cycle of planets is going to help us here on Earth immensely. And it’s also going to help us understand our place in the universe,” he said.

Garan also says that finding signs of ancient life will be “amazing in itself,” but more importantly, it will allow NASA scientists to study why that life is no longer there, which can be useful in study Earth’s ongoing climate change, which we just saw wreak havoc on Texas.

(Via CNN)